A computing device may have several different software applications or services that produce alerts or notifications, which pop-up on a display screen to provide information or a reminder to a user. The alerts can be reminders of scheduled times for appointments or other tasks, as provided by a combined email and personal information manager program, such as Microsoft Corporation's ENTOURAGE™ program for Apple Corporation's MACINTOSH™ Computers. Users can also schedule notifications to follow up on a file in Microsoft Corporation's WORD™, EXCEL™, and POWERPOINT™ programs. Instant messaging programs, such as Microsoft Corporation's MSN MESSENGER™ program, open other types of alerts, such as an alert that a stock price has reached a predefined level or an alert that an accident on a road frequently traveled by the user has caused a traffic delay. Connection of computing devices to the Internet has greatly expanded the range and types of possible notifications and alerts that may be displayed to a user. The form of these alerts or notifications and the manner in which they appear on a user's display screen is generally determined by the designers of the software applications that produce them. It is not surprising that users find the variety and number of notifications and alerts so overwhelming that they may eventually choose to disable all notifications and alerts.
There is clearly a benefit for a user of a computing device to receive information of potential value and to be reminded of the approach of a scheduled time to carry out a task. However, there is a need to better manage the various kinds of notifications and alerts that are presented to a user on a display. It should be possible for a user to centrally access, manage, and view alerts from a variety of different sources, instead of each notification or alert being controlled separately by the application that produced it and each appearing in a different format and in a manner determined by its own set of preferences. Currently, there is no provision in any application or operating system for centrally managing notifications and alerts from different sources in such a uniform manner. By providing a centralized notification manager, users should be able to more efficiently access the information and reminders provided thereby and not be confused by a variety of different formats and functionalities for presenting the notifications and alerts.